


Cliffside Views

by lifetimeoflaughter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Feels, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Ficlet, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, POV Natasha Romanov, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Self-Sacrificing Natasha Romanoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifetimeoflaughter/pseuds/lifetimeoflaughter
Summary: some thoughts that Natasha last thought, right before she died.
Kudos: 14





	Cliffside Views

_Where else am I going to get a view like this?_

-

It’s a long fall. It’s far, and all she can see around her is purple. 

It’s a really long fall. She feels like Alice falling to Wonderland. The air is colder, though, and she can hear the wind whistle as she continues her descent. 

It’s like time has become liquid. She’s lived a long time, and yet compared to this fall, her final act in the land of the living…it seems like but a dream. She can’t help but think of all the other times she has fallen, into helicopters, out of helicopters, off of buildings, out of buildings. That does bring a smile to her face. 

She can still see Clint on the side of the cliff, arm outstretched, mouth an O. 

Clint. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been mad at him. She’d been angry at all of them. So angry. All those bottles of vodka and the targets full of bullets that she hadn’t ~~had~~ been pretending were their faces. Tony. Steve. Bruce. Thor.

Clint. 

She’d be lying, too, if she said she hadn’t been more than a little in love with him. She’d never told him, of course. He was her best friend, and he was married, and he had kids. He’d wanted kids. She had met him way back when he hadn’t known a Laura, and he had told her one day, after a particularly difficult mission that should he ever escape “the life”, he wanted kids. she wanted them too. He could have them. She couldn’t.

Oh, the kids. Cooper and sweet Lila and baby Nathaniel… Stark’s Spiderling… even Wanda. All ashes to ashes, dust to dust. She’s not important to them, she doubts they’ll even remember her. That’s not important. What’s important is bringing them back, so that Clint’s heart becomes whole again and so Tony can learn to laugh again. 

What she wouldn’t give to hear Lila say “Auntie Nat!” just one more time. Hear Wanda laugh and Nathaniel coo. Even Morgan, that angel. She just wants them to be happy. She wants everyone to be happy, even if it means giving up her own life for it. _Because that’s what heroes do._

This is a ridiculously long fall. 

She wonders if it was this bad for Gamora. 

From Nebula’s limited description, she would’ve liked to meet Gamora. A pretty green badass space assassin raised to be bad, but willing to be good. Did everyone have a space doppelganger? Was there a Captain Mars out there, frowning at the sarcasm of some deep-space alien named Tony Star? 

_Poor Gamora_ , she thought. This fall wasn’t ideal, but at least she chose to jump. Gamora was pushed. By her own father, no less. 

She didn’t want to die. _I don’t want to die._ She didn’t have a choice. _I…I couldn’t let him make that choice._

So she keeps falling, her mind stretching her final moments from milliseconds to millions of light-years, the towering indigo cliffs repeating themselves again and again, falling like she’s stuck in some time-loop. Just her luck too. 

Clint’s a tiny speck now, far far away on the edge of the cliff, leaning over. She wants to tell him to move away from the edge, to give him a last hug, to hold him and hold him and apologize for everything over the years, and _thank_ him, thank him for giving her a chance to live life and cut the red from her ledger. 

She’s still falling. 

It’s a long fall. It’s far, and all she can see around her is purple.

When she finally hits the ground, there is only one thought in her head.

_where else am I going to get a view like this?_


End file.
